330 FORTY YEARS AMONG tHE JJEES. 



shows that the colony has swarmed and the dipped queen 

 has been lost. In that case cells are destroyed and a 

 queen given at the next visit. 



The plan is somewhat troublesome, but reliable, and 

 interferes with the honey-crop less than shaking swarms. 



BROOD AND POLLEN IN SECTIONS. 



On page 134 it is said that so rarely does a queen 

 go up into a section-super that it is not at all worth while 

 to use a queen-excluder to keep her down. Since that 

 was written others have reported that an excluder was 

 an absolute necessity. I cannot understand why there 

 should be such a difference unless the explanation be 

 this : With no drone-comb, or nearly none, in the brood- 

 chamber, there will be a strong tendency to have the 

 queen go up into the super if any drone-comb be there. 

 If only small starters are put in the sections, and there is 

 po drone-comb below, the bees are quite sure to build 

 drone-comb in the supers, and the queen is pretty sure 

 to go up and occupy it. Pollen naturally follows the 

 brood in the sections. As my sections are entirely filled 

 with worker foundation, no drone-comb can be built 

 there ; hence no brood or pollen. 



Another thing that causes pollen in sections is shal- 

 low frames in the brood-chamber. Two colonies on 

 shallow frames one year put more pollen in sections than 

 all the rest of my bees together on deeper combs. Others 

 have reported the same. 



IMPROVEMENT IN PUSPI-BOARD. 



Occasionally, after pushing sections out of supers 

 with the push-board described on page 203, I have found 

 at the lower part of some of the central sections some of 

 the cells looking watery, the push-board having crowded 

 a little too hard at the central part. There is no need of 

 any pressure at this central part ; indeed, it probably 

 hinders rather than helps to get the sections out, even 



